Brazil - Agriculture

Photo by: jakazvan

In 1999, 17.3% of Brazil's economically active population worked
in agriculture, down from 23.3% in 1990. Total arable and permanent crop
area comprises 65.3 million hectares (161 million acres). Although
agriculture's share of exports has declined relative to
industrial goods, the value has continued to increase, so that Brazil in
1977 became the world's second-largest exporter of agricultural
products. Except for grain (particularly wheat), of which some seven
million tons had to be imported in 2001, Brazil is virtually
self-sufficient in food. The growth rates for agriculture as a whole
averaged 2.8% during 1980–1990, and 3.2% for 1990–2000. By
1999, agricultural production was 20.2% higher than during
1989–91. In 2000, agriculture accounted for 7% of the total GDP.
Export crops are significant—in addition to the traditional
exports of coffee and cocoa, Brazil is also a major exporter of soybeans
and orange juice. In 1999, Brazil ranked fourth in the production of
cocoa beans (after Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Indonesia) at
206,000 tons, or 7.1% of the world's cocoa bean production. In
recent years, however, production has been devastated by the effects of
the witches-broom fungus.

The Land Statute Law of 1964 was designed to modify the agrarian
structure and increase agricultural output in selected regions over a
20-year period. The law empowered the federal government to expropriate
unused or underutilized land by offering indemnification in bonds in the
case of large properties and cash payment for smallholdings. In
redistributing expropriated lands, priority is given to those who work
the land under tenancy, sharecropping, or ordinary labor agreements.
Responsibility for implementing the law is divided between the Brazilian
Agrarian Reform Institute and the National Institute of Agricultural
Development. In October 1984, a law was passed to facilitate the
distribution of 43.1 million hectares (106.5 million acres) of
state-owned land and non-productive private estates to1.4 million
peasant families, primarily in the impoverished northeast, through 1989.
The formation of cooperatives was encouraged.

Coffee, until 1974 preeminent among export earners, has been declining
in importance since the early 1960s, while soybeans, sugarcane, cotton,
wheat, and citrus fruits have shown dramatic increases. Brazil led the
world in coffee production in 2002/2003, at 3,096,000 tons. Sugarcane
production, in which Brazil ranked first in the world in 2002/2003, is
grown not only for refined sugar but also as a source of alcohol for
fuel, and totaled 22,750,000 tons that season. In 1999, production
included 22,772,000 tons of oranges, 20,973,000 tons of cassava, and
125,000 tons of cashews. Tobacco production in 2002 totaled 570,150
tons, 10% of world production. Agricultural production in 2000/2001 (in
millions of tons) was corn, 35.5; soybeans, 39.0; rice, 6.9; wheat, 3.3;
and cottonseed, 1.5. Further agricultural reforms have been carried out
under the Carta de Brasília of 1967. The Carta included an
incentive program for the construction of storage facilities, to permit
farmers to hold products off the market in expectation of better prices.
Agricultural research in Brazil is conducted by the Agriculture and
Cattle Raising Institute of Research. The expansion of power,
transportation, and communications systems during the 1970s further
contributed to agricultural development.